


Sometimes Plans Go Awry

by Rellanka



Series: A Year Of Cloudy Skies [5]
Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: FF7 Remake Spoilers, M/M, Seduction attempt gone wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23656603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rellanka/pseuds/Rellanka
Summary: What if Avalanche found out about the plan to drop the Plate a little earlier? Wouldn't they send someone in to find out what was happening when all their other sources didn't have a clue?In this case, Cloud is that lucky someone.Mild spoilers for FF7 Remake.
Relationships: Rufus Shinra/Cloud Strife
Series: A Year Of Cloudy Skies [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697269
Comments: 5
Kudos: 221





	Sometimes Plans Go Awry

**Author's Note:**

> This was another one that actually was originally inspired from this post ([here](https://inspiring-prompts.tumblr.com/post/189802165097/youre-not-the-man-i-thought-you-were-to-be)). It really is such a good prompt blog!
> 
> #Cloud is captured and is NOT happy about it  
> #but it all works out in the end  
> #hints of mutual pining  
> #Blink and you miss it hint of bottom Cloud

The moment Cloud felt the pinprick of pain on the back of his neck, he knew that he was in trouble. 

He’d told Barret and Tifa this was a bad idea in the first place. Then he’d argued that if someone needed to seduce the Vice President of Shinra to get information about the horrifying plans the company had in motion, Cloud should be the last one to be considered. 

But, when Barret had accepted Cloud’s rejection, and Cloud had faced the idea of Tifa or Jessie or even Biggs or Wedge being thrown into that serpents pit all alone, he had gone back on his own protests and volunteered for this damn mission. 

The entire time he had prepared, dread and a sense of thrumming panic had been swirling through his bloodstream at the thought of walking back into the home of some of his worst nightmares. Hojo was here, Cloud knew he was. He’d talked about going to back to Midgar after idly writing Cloud off as a failure while he’d clucked and shaved pieces of Cloud off to see how he healed from the experience. If Cloud stepped into that building, there was always a chance that he could come face to face with the monster, and then find himself strapped to a table and screaming before he knew it. A part of him thought that the bastard got off on hearing his experiments suffering. He certainly acted like he got some sick satisfaction from it at times. 

The only thing that had given him the strength necessary to actually walk through those doors was how unlikely it was that he would come across Hojo. Hojo was creepy and sadistic, but he was also a control freak. It took a lot to draw his attention away from his lab; from what Cloud had witnessed as one of his experiments, he was always afraid that the ones left to care for them might not do so properly. 

So as long as Cloud avoided the labs (no problem getting him to do that) and so long as he avoided any Soldiers who would be able to point out that he no longer belonged there, Cloud was actually the perfect person to send on this mission. His eyes marked him as property of Shinra better than anything else ever could have, and that was more than enough for the other staff at the company to open the doors for him. 

And up to now, everything had gone as planned. Even Rufus’s secretary had been easy to convince that he had something urgent to discuss with the Vice President, though considering Cloud’s situation now, her seeming obliviousness to Cloud’s plot might have just been part of a plot itself. 

Still, Cloud really had been thinking he was going to be able to manage to do this. While his original plan of talking to Rufus while pretending to have some form of hero worship had been thrown out the window the second that Rufus had opened his arrogant mouth and spoke, things had progressed pretty nicely from there. Rufus had almost seemed to enjoy the way that Cloud called him out on his shit and knocked him down several pegs, and Cloud had definitely seen Rufus throw him several long, speculative looks with eyes temporarily fixed on very telling locations during their talk. 

Rufus was arrogant, and cocky, and utterly dismissive of people he viewed as being below a certain standard that he was willing to acknowledge, but he was also attractive, and sometimes funny, and subtly dominant in a way that made a small, quiet corner of Cloud’s mind get ideas.

Cloud had even, maybe, sort of been enjoying himself as their talk went on. 

Before this. 

(Maybe he should have just outright climbed into Rufus's bed for this, like Jessie had suggested. It probably would have been more distracting.)

 _Well,_ Cloud thought with a bitter, wild humor in a mind that was barely even functioning through his panic as the sedative washed over him and turned his limbs heavy and unwieldy, _If I’m going to be their lab rat again, I can at least take some of them down with me._

And he tried, pulling out one of the knives Barret had insisted he keep on his person and going straight for Rufus’s throat. 

The sedative, meant for people with Soldier strength if the way that it was affecting Cloud was any indication, dragged him down into the darkness before he could take more than a single step. 

***

When he woke, he wasn’t floating in a tube of mako or strapped to a table with Hojo’s ugly, sneering face peering down at him. 

So that was a surprise. 

As was the fact that he was in what appeared to be an actual bedroom, lying on a bed with all of his clothing still present. 

Wherever he was, he was in a much better situation then he would have been had he woken up in either of those earlier two scenarios. When Cloud took in further stock of the room, he even noticed that there was a window on a wall to the left of the bed, and he carefully pushed himself into a sitting position and stared at it consideringly. He wondered if he could break through and disappear before anyone would notice or if that would merely alert whatever guards he had watching him, landing him in a worse position than the one he was already in. Gods knew he didn’t want to tempt them into changing their minds about throwing him to Hojo’s not-so-tender mercies. 

“You can try the window, but we are rather high up- and it is a **sheer** drop. It would be such a shame for someone as beautiful as you to die in such a way. Or perhaps someone of your enhancements would be able to survive whereas the rest of us would likely die quick, ugly deaths. I really couldn’t say for sure.” Rufus’s purring voice broke into Cloud’s musings, coming from an open door that Cloud was too lost in thought to even notice opening. Or perhaps still too affected by the drugs they’d pumped him with to notice. 

“Might be a better fate than any of the ones you have planned for me.” Cloud replied flatly, body tense and ready but his mind knowing that Rufus wouldn’t have come into this room without some sort of protection. Maybe more of that drug he’d already been dosed with once. 

Rufus smiled, leaning on the wall next to the window as if in a taunt. 

“You’re not the man that I thought you were, Soldier.” He said idly, as if they were engaged in polite conversation and he was just offering a simple observation he’d happened to pick up.

“To be fair, if the attempted murder didn’t tip you off, I really don’t see what else I could have done.” Cloud bit back sarcastically. 

Rufus smiled back, a hint of amusement lurking in his eyes. 

Attractive dick looked like he was enjoying himself. 

“It’s too bad you weren’t who you were pretending to be, truly. I quite enjoyed that show of yours. I believe we could have had a wonderful time together if you had meant it. But the fact is, Cloud, that when I allowed you into my office, I thought I was talking to the head of Avalanche. A Soldier gone rogue from Shinra who probably has good reasons to have a grudge? Who else should I have expected? But, no, it really _is_ the big man with the gun arm, isn’t it? At least of your little group.”

Cloud jerked at how much Rufus knew about him, and about Avalanche. It left him feeling vulnerable, and open, as if he had open wounds on display for Rufus to easily spot and pick apart. It left him feeling protective, a part of him snarling defensively at the mention of Barret and his team, as it had when those thugs had come looking for Barret and Cloud had shown them why that was a bad idea.

“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I’m **not** the leader.” He snapped back darkly, fists clenching as he started to reevaluate whether or not punching Rufus might be worth it. The ever looming threat of Hojo was the only thing holding him back at this point. 

“No, but you’re certainly not unimportant to the group. You may not be the head of Avalanche, but you are the best asset they could possibly have. You’re their trump card, their ace in the hole, their deus ex machina. You may not be the leader yourself, but you’re close to the person that is. There’s no way they would have someone like you in their organization without keeping a close eye on you. You’ll know how I can get in contact with them.” Rufus intuited smoothly, his expression certain of his own correctness. 

And that was all true, but for wrong reasons. Cloud was fairly sure that at first the reason that Barret kept such a close eye on him was out of worry for the rest of his team, making sure that if Cloud turned on them, Barret was first in the line of fire. As time went on and they started becoming something closer to friends it might also be to look out for Cloud himself. The loud bear of a man was much, much softer then he liked to admit; and even as he snarked at Cloud, Cloud knew that he was viewed as a lot more than just a weapon to him. Knew that Barret would do his damned best to help him if he ever knew that Cloud was in trouble. 

Cloud would never betray that kind of loyalty, especially not here. Not in the Shinra headquarters, and not to the Vice President of the company. 

“Sorry. Never met a group like that in my life.” Cloud said with a sarcastic brightness, smirking right up into Rufus’s smug, arrogant, pretty face. 

“But you have. And you’ll _want_ to help me get ahold of them.” Rufus returned, arrogance traded for a rare seriousness.

“Even if you were right, why would I want to do that?” Cloud asked warily.

“Because you’re going to help me save hundreds of thousands of people by making it so that my father does not order the Turks to drop the Sector Seven Plate.” Rufus replied, causing Cloud to draw back and grit his teeth. They’d known it. They’d known it, but still. Hearing that it was actually something Shinra was planning…

“By sacrificing Barret?” Cloud snapped. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. But at the same time, all those people… even as Avalanche had tried to warn them, far too few had actually left the Sector. Most of them hadn’t taken their warnings seriously. Innocently thinking that there was no way Shinra would ever do something like that. Not knowing how wrong they were. 

“No. Not necessarily. Not if my plans work as they’re meant to. And I assure you, they are _very_ good plans.” 

Barret would take the offer, if it were being made to him, Cloud abruptly thought. Barret would take it without hesitation, as long as he was able to ensure that Marlene would be alright without him. Even if Rufus was lying and it was sacrifice… the Avalanche leader would never put his life above all those living in Sector Seven. He would hate Cloud if he learned that Cloud said no to it in his place. Hate him, and go sacrifice himself anyway if he found out about it. The only thing that Cloud could really do now was make sure that if Barret was to walk to the executioners block… Cloud would be right there beside him. 

Cloud stared silently at Rufus silently for a moment, before taking in a deep breath and closing his eyes in resignation. 

“And how can I trust that you’re actually going to help and not make things worse?” He asked lowly. Cloud didn’t, not really. But he might as well hear what Rufus was going to say to try to talk him into it. The stakes were stacked much too high for Cloud not to. 

“You don’t.” Rufus said promptly, “But at this point you have nothing to lose. And considering what this plan will stop, I think it best that you accept me at my word for once.” 

He was right, damn him. Any chance they had to stop Shinra from killing that many people was a chance they had no other choice but to take.

“What do I have to do?” Cloud asked.

And, giving Cloud the truest smile he’d ever seen out of the other man, Rufus began telling him. 

***

They never did manage to work their way through the entire plan to stop the President from ordering the Plate to be dropped. Instead, they found little ways to stall him, minor and slightly major annoyances that held his hand from doing so right then, as his attention was encouraged by Rufus to turn to other areas. By the time they would have needed to bring the plan to true fruition, it was no longer needed. 

Sephiroth had revealed himself, and the President was dead. 

“What will you do now?” Cloud asked Rufus as they stood on that rooftop. 

The man smiled humorlessly back at Cloud, a thousand mixed emotions lurking behind a carefully chosen mask of arrogant disregard. For once, Cloud was sensitive enough to not ask how the man felt about the loss of his father. 

The President’s and the Vice President’s relationship had obviously been deeply complicated, and Cloud doubted that dragging all of that out on this rooftop right after the man had died would be helpful to Rufus at all. So he wouldn’t bring it up. Not when Rufus had become something almost like a friend as they worked together to stop the Plate fall of Sector Seven. A friend, and maybe something a little more. 

“Well, as of right now, Sephiroth is definitely the largest threat my company has, so I thought I might go alien spawn hunting.” Rufus paused, another series of carefully hidden emotions flashing across his face, before he offered softly, “You could come with me. If you liked. You might belong to your little group, but… I’d like to think that part of you is also mine. You were a Soldier, after all. And I never got to learn how much of that flirtation you engaged in that you meant, when we first met. I’d like a chance to find out- if you’d let me.” 

The problem was that a part of Cloud did want to go with Rufus, very much so. But while his teammates were reluctantly grateful to Rufus for all of the help he’d given them in saving Sector Seven, they were also incredibly reluctant to trust him. Cloud **himself** was incredibly reluctant to trust him, even as he found himself liking the man more than he wanted to admit. 

His team would never agree to work with Rufus and the Turks while they searched for Sephiroth, and there was simply too much history there, too much bad blood between Cloud and the company Rufus was now President of for Cloud to try to talk his team into it. 

“I’m sorry. Right now… I can’t. I can’t just leave my friends like that.” A flash of visible disappointment crossed Rufus’s face as Cloud stepped back and shook his head, before that arrogant and unreadable mask took its place once more. 

“Maybe someday, then.” The current President of Shinra said. He looked- beautifully tragic right then. Standing there alone against the backdrop of the darkened sky, haloed by the lights shining down upon him, hair whipping in the wind as a helicopter rose up to retrieve him and their chopping blades washed all other sound away. 

“Maybe someday.” Cloud agreed as he watched Rufus disappear, sure that his voice wasn’t loud enough to be heard over the noise. 

Still. 

He’d meant what he said. 

And maybe someday, he really would be able to take Rufus up on that offer.

**Author's Note:**

> Whelp, I'm not quite done with my Andrea/Cloud series (though I'm very close now) so I knew I needed to tap into my pre-written works for today's story. I was torn between three and I asked Tumblr which I should post. This one won with three votes, but the Barret/Cloud fic got two, so I'm posting it tomorrow. Then I'll start posting the rest of the series, and after that I'll post the Roche/Cloud fic of the three (which didn't get a vote, sadly.) So, that's the plan for about the next week. Hope you guys enjoy this fic!


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